Redemption
by satinskies27
Summary: The story of redemption. A series of character sketches about my favorite Harry Potter characters growing up into their own.
1. Draco

Redemption

**Chapter 1: Draco**

He closes his eyes and forces himself to take deep, shuddering breaths. The respite is brief and fleeting. The night air, taut with tension, is rent by screams once more. Screams of pain and anger, rage and fear, desperation and despair. Screams that plague his waking hours and haunt his dreams. They stir up uncomfortable feelings within him, then settle in the swirling morass of discomfort.

The assault of memories begins anew. His mother's voice, tight with fear as she pleads for him, then her sharp scream, cut off as she is knocked to the floor and dragged from the room. The scream that passes as his aunt's manic laughter. The endless parade of nameless victims, crying themselves hoarse as they spill blood and anguish. Then that cold, amused laugh.

He is forced to stand witness to these atrocities. Once he thought them a spectacle; how proud he was, how grown up he felt, when he was first invited to attend. The second he believed just punishment for their crimes. By the third time, he winces as the cuts and bruises are inflicted, and by the fourth, he can almost _feel _their pain. When he is next called, he tarries, discomfort warring with the fear of punishment for his disobedience. There is a searing pain in his chest as a child stumbles into him and collapses when he arrives. The child does not rise again, her blood pooling at his feet.

Red blood. Wine-red, rose-red, ruby-red, red just like his.

Over the weeks, the discomfort turns into growing unease, which becomes an all-consuming guilt. It nibbles at his doubts, snakes its way into his hidden fears. He tells himself that they deserved their fates. Some days, he even succeeds in believing it. But then the guilt rears its head and assaults him anew.

When he closes his eyes, the child's beseeching ones fill his vision. The fear, the hurt, the confusion mirrored in his own. He remembers the selfsame emotions when he fell out off his first broomstick, and the yawning abyss that was his fear screaming for him. He remembers the fear ebbing away when his father swept him into his arms, the pain bleeding away as his mother kissed him better. He remembers the feeling of warmth and safety and love bursting in his tiny chest.

Now all he can feel is guilt. Guilt for watching, unblinking. Guilt for simply standing by.

At first he quashes this alien emotion. He was pure; he had done no wrong. They deserved what they had coming, simply because they were mere creature, no, _animals_; simply because they were not born like him. He laughs, silently, mirthlessly, now. Now he bears the weight of guilt on their behalf. Guilt that he was safe merely because of his blood.

In his dreams, his robes and hands are stained with the girl-child's blood.

Blood: the holy of holies he was raised to worship, the altar of sacrifice. How could something so right feel so utterly wrong?

He remembers their faces as if they were his own.


	2. Hermione

**Chapter 2: Hermione**

Hermione Granger has never truly felt like she belonged.

Not in the Muggle world where she was born. Not when she was marked as _strange_, because the oddest things happened when she lost her temper (which was seldom), or that her natural shyness was deemed hauteur (even though she was really more than a little insecure).

It didn't help that people edged away because she made them uncomfortable, and so she never quite learned how to make friends.

One thing she learned, though, was to hide behind books – the perfect shield from sharp tongues and unkind words. If she could not seek solace in people, she would lose herself in facts and fantasies. And if she became smarter than everyone else, well, perhaps they might be encouraged to think better of her, or maybe – maybe even like her all the better for it.

But they didn't; not really. The other kids became envious, and whispered about the strange, smart bookworm with the buckteeth and electric hair. Her parents were worried but proud, and smiled absently when she came home with glowing reports and a distinct lack of sleepover invitations, year after year. She could see her helplessness reflected in their eyes.

Most people disliked things they could not understand, her books had told her. She numbed the hurt by burying herself in more books.

So when the Hogwarts letter came when she was eleven, it felt as if the weight of the world was lifted off her shoulders. At last: the perfect explanation for why she was so… different. Perhaps at this new school in this new world, she could find people who could really understand her.

She could begin anew.

But she never really felt she belonged in the wizarding world either.

Reading her schoolbooks did not prepare her for the sense of wonder that she had surrounded her when she stepped through Platform 9¾. Neither did they prepare her for when it began to fade soon after. This was a world of magic, but not a magical world. People were still… people.

The blonde Malfoy boy had called her nasty names. Well, Mudblood was only a derogatory _word_; she knew better than to let it affect her too much. What she hated was what it insinuated: that she didn't really belong. And it was unfair that he had what she wanted, and in abundance as well: the air of supercilious self-assurance that he exuded with such ease, the good looks and the crowd that flanked him on either side. Hermione Granger clenched her fists and looked away.

But at least this world was devoid of unkind whispers, or so she thought. That was before she overheard a familiar voice outside the Charms classroom. It mimicked her eagerness to answer questions, and was accompanied by a harmony of laughter. Unaccountable rage rose in her like bitter bile. Being good at her work was nothing to be ashamed of, not when it was the only thing she really had. She should have stood her ground. She could have, if she were properly brave like a real Gryffindor, she thought. But when she felt the prickling beginnings of hot tears, she fled.

Still, she found that she could be forgiving after all, because when Ron Weasley and Harry Potter rescued her from the Troll on Halloween, it was as if they had saved her from drowning. And so she clung to them like life itself. Never mind that they teased her about her obsessive studying, and grumbled when she nagged them to work. Never mind that they resented her actions sometimes, and didn't always understand. For the first time in her twelve years, she could say that they were her friends, and she belonged to them, like they belonged to her.

Because one thing people never understood about Hermione Granger was that she was more than the sum of the books she read. She was more than a frumpy nerd, more than a teacher's pet, more than a brilliant essay writer, an academic worrywart or a walking encyclopedia of spells.

She had a hidden prettiness that blossomed when she ceased to frown and started to smile. Her hair shone like spun gold in the sun. She bit her lip whenever she was nervous, which was often, and she wished she were more confident. She sometimes thought that the Sorting Hat was wrong to place her in Gryffindor. She could see the good in people that she failed to see in herself, but she was better than she believed herself to be. She knew right from wrong, or thought she did anyway. And she could be fiercely loyal.

So it wasn't really a surprise that she left her books and staked her life to follow her best friends on the Horcrux hunt. What was a surprise, though, was what happened when Fenrir Greyback showed up. In the precious few seconds left to her before the voices entered their tent, she Stunned and Disillusioned a gaping Ron and a horrified Harry. And she gave herself up.

Because she knew that the Snatchers would not give up unless they had someone in their grasp. Because she was afraid but she was more determined. Because she had nothing left to lose.

And no matter how well Ron and Harry knew her, they had never really understood entirely anyway.


End file.
